#Planetary annihilation titan portals series#
Part of what made the Wargame series so popular and well-received is that it was so realistic and happened on such an unprecedented scale.
For example, let's look at RTS-giant Eugen Systems, most well-known for their famous Wargame series. Every RTS has its own problems and shortcomings, simply by virtue of its own design philosophy. I should probably preface this section by stating that no game is perfect. Cons, or problems still with the game as a whole: The mechanics actually are fun and make sense, and do their ultimate job of allowing the player to easily travel from planet to planet.ģ. While it could still use a lot of work (hell, space combat could theoretically become as nuanced and complex as ground combat), I feel that it is in a much better, more reasonable place now.
Indeed, space combat felt a little weird, uninspired, buggy, and ultimately soulless. Space fleshed out: A lot of the complaints of the game on release revolved around objects in space (no pun intended). Having extremely expensive but massively powerful monsters which can leave swathes of destruction through enemy armies and bases causes what can only be known as well.total annihilation. Titans: For me, Experimental Class units were always an essentially part of what made Total Annihilation what it was, and even the Supreme Commander games realized this quite nicely. Units and projectiles are more easily identified and appreciated than before, making it easier to tell what's going on. Graphic improvements: This probably isn't a huge deal to everybody, but things have definitely improved in this regard. There's also a lot less lag, from what I can tell, than there was originally. Many bugs crushed: Pathing is much better, superweapons work correctly now (and are awesome), less weird bugs and hiccups in general. A game of this scale needs good UI and I feel they've finally succeeded in this regard. I've been very impressed with these changes. Vastly better UI system: Not much to say about this, you just have to try it yourself. Many things have been done to either reduce or eliminate micromanagement entirely such as planetary patrol patterns, galaxy-wide announcements, picture-in-picture sequences of important events, automated build queues, streamlined pathing mechanics, "construct in this area" mechanics, and just the fact that the game's overall scale calls the player to be more acquiescent to the totality of their plan, instead of laser focused on a single battle where fast clicking makes a huge difference. Macro-based gaming: The UI and game-mechanics have been simplified to the point that the game can truly be called macro-based in my opinion. Now it's practically like it was in the trailer. Use solar bodies as weapons: I feel this is self-explanatory, but in any case, it works much, much more smoothly now than it did at release. Now with Titans and space-class Battleships, the scale of the game grows by an order of magnitude. The potential strategy and nuance of just this game mechanic alone, when done correctly, is mind-boggling. Incredible scale: I don't think there's another RTS which can match the sheer scale of thousands of units duking it out with one another across not multiple fronts, but multiple planets. From what I can tell so far, they've all been done rather well in addition (which certainly wasn't the case on launch). Planetary Annihilation has both sea and space, which in my opinion diversifies its potential options vastly. Land, sea, air, and space: Most RTS games do not even include sea as a potential option. Planetary battlefield: Maps are solar systems, not flat squares. I'll split my new opinions about the game into 3 sections:ġ. There are vast improvements over the original formula, and I think this iteration even surpasses all the goals and promises they made in Kickstarter for us originally. I'm just going to go ahead and treat this like a new game, because, for Kickstarter supporters at least, it pretty much is. 40 pages of obfuscation prevent any kind of constructive discussion for a game which, at this point (in my experience), is vastly different than what it was on its official release. It's 40 pages long, and was created when the game's Kickstarter was announced over 2 years ago. Over a seven year period I wrote many Final Hours stories as well as other long-form pieces about significant game companies like Blizzard, id Software, Trilobyte, and Ion Storm.I know we have a PA thread already, but it probably needs to die. Back in 1998, while I was still in college, I started writing by "Behind the Games" series at, which led to The Final Hours.
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